


Waiting for the Thaw Out

by NorthwesternInsanity



Series: Ridin the Storm Out [1]
Category: Music RPF, REO Speedwagon
Genre: Band as Family, Drama, Fighting, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Lyric Inspired, Ridin the Storm Out (REO Speedwagon song), blizzard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: 1973, nearing the end of the R.E.O./T.W.O. tour, the second lineup of REO Speedwagon encounters the infamous Rocky Mountain blizzard that inspired a set of lyrics, and would eventually lead to a live radio hit.  For Alan Gratzer, Kevin Cronin, and Gary Richrath, the storm raging outside the pub may be the least worrisome storm facing them -until they have to set their differences aside and take on a blizzard rescue mission and face riding out the storm together overnight.  Prequel to "Another Storm to Ride".





	Waiting for the Thaw Out

"Kevin, I already told you-"

"-Gary, can I see what's there and say if-"

"-I'm _working_ on it, _okay?_ You can help me arrange it later, but let me figure out the idea I have first -it's mine to start with!"

Alan Gratzer let out a groan at the sound of his bandmates bickering on the other side of the bathroom door. Trying to hide from the sound of it for just a few minutes hadn't worked as well as he'd hoped, since their argument had raised their voices just high enough that the door was useless to block out the sound. Fatigue from the day they'd had, now running into the night on top of the din of the back-and-forth throbbed behind his eyes, and he scooped up a handful of water at the sink to splash on his face in a vain attempt to refresh himself.

To say that Gary Richrath and Kevin Cronin -the latter of whom was the second singer REO Speedwagon were attempting to work with -had creative differences seemed to be the understatement of a year for anyone who had the pleasure of working with them.

Terry Luttrell had a good sound and had fit in well to the writing process, but was quick to fall out with them through gigs and quickly tired of the style they'd defined. When he'd lost the band a night's paycheck, and lost the cushion they'd built above the means of minimal survival to maintain their gear by pitching a fit at the gig and refusing to sing anymore halfway through, Gary pitched a fit on the ride home and challenged Terry to a roadside fight. Terry ran off into the corn fields of the midwestern countryside, and that was the last time they saw him. With the arguments that had come up between him and just about everyone else in their time together, no one saw the need to challenge Gary and consider finding Terry either.

Kevin had a different sound. Less bluesy, more folk-type, possibly more radio-friendly depending on how he might use it. He was more flexible and fun to be around than Terry was when road life became less than pleasant. But while he was easier to get along with as a person, he was more at odds with them during the writing process. And now that they were looking into a third studio album and the uncertainty of whether Kevin would be staying, or if they would be seeking Alan's old friend Mike Murphy as a third singer, it was becoming very clear that Kevin would be demanding of a larger part in the writing process in the former event.

Tonight, they were staying in a mostly abandoned pub building that still had been maintained and kept functional by the owner in the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, just a short ways down the road from the newer bar they'd gotten an early evening gig in. The owner who had offered them the gig offered them the place to stay when a storm began raging in from the East, making the night drive home they'd planned on out of the question.

The band hadn't objected. Getting a hotel in town to the west was out of what they had the means to afford, and the nature of the incoming storm left them no option to be choosy. Ideally, being snowed in and staying together in a bar lounge overnight was a change of scenery that lent an invitation for good writing and inspiration. And they might have gone a long ways in the three hours they'd been there since the gig, if not for the arguing that had come up not even an hour into their stay.

Now they were running on the emergency backup power supply after they'd watched the transformer on the pole outside blow when the wind kicked the wires too hard. It seemed the longer the storm went on outside and the more violent it got, the bigger the storm between Kevin and Gary got too. Deep accumulation had gathered on the ground that had been mostly bare on arrival, and they had plenty to question about their lineup whenever getting home became a possibility.

Grumbling, Alan left his failed attempt of a hideout, only this time, he wasn't going back into the main part of the pub to stand mediator between Kevin and Gary. He had a level head most of the time, but after hours of being stuck between them, he'd had enough.

"Kevin, this is the last time I'm gonna say it, and then both of you are on your own. _Back. Off._ Keep going and don't come crying to me when one of you don't like what you're told. I told you all more than once tonight, and that's more than enough."

With that, he walked through the lounge to the bar counter along the back wall that separated the kitchen. When he got up to it, he smacked both his hands down hard on the surface.

Gregg Philbin sat up and slid his stool over a place from where Alan stood.

"You look like you could use a drum kit to rail on," he remarked.

"I _could."_ Alan leaned over the counter while still standing, and just to make his point, lightly hit his forehead against the surface.

"That's alright. Ask Neal and he'll probably tell you he'd like to take it out on a piano, even though he won't _use_ the one in the corner over there he has available to him."

"If it were uniformly out of tune -say it was down a semitones all across - I could work with that. Might even add that echo effect when you get one with classical tuning. But _that_ monstrosity in the corner hardly deserves to be called a piano," said Neal, pointing across the room. "The E flat is on same pitch with middle C, and half of the keys are sticking enough that you can forget striking them twice in a set of beats-"

"It could be used in a horror movie!" Gregg's face lit up, and even Neal's dour features cracked into a smile at that.

"Yeah, it might be the most terrifying thing there. All those clashing notes. You could get a tritone just trying to play a normal scale. Actually," Neal lowered one eyebrow and raised the other, "it might be more terrifying to think of what drunken antics may have led to the piano ending up that way. I'd hate to know what's happened on top of it."

"Only a dirty-minded pianist would. Only. Neal, shame on you," scolded Gregg as he reached over and motioned to shove at him.

"See, Neal, you and I have it tough." Alan sank down on a stool between the two with a sigh, though the twinkle in his eyes gave away his facetious intention. "Gregg, Gary, Kevin -they can carry their guitars anywhere they please and do whatever they want wherever they want to. You can't just do that with drums or a keyboard. And except for the main gigs, you can't just carry a kit inside a building, because the owners won't have it, so if you're even lucky enough to have something of their's to use, it's a miracle and a half if it works the way you want it to."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Alan, I didn't bring my bass in here, and I'm going out in that storm to get it now. The temperature change getting it out of the truck would snap the strings for sure. But if you're looking for something to _hit_ to blow off steam, I'm sure you'll find plenty to do it with through those doors if you're up to doing what your mama probably told you a thousand times not to do as a kid..." Gregg pointed to the kitchen doors with a devilish smile. "Set them up on the billiard table the owner didn't have the decency to leave us the supplies to-"

It took Alan a moment to figure out what he meant in his haze of boredom and exasperation, but when it set in, he couldn't help but crack up collectively with Gregg.

"Oh, no," he groaned, reaching out to clap the bassist on the shoulder. _"No!_ Then I would be the bad guy in here -forget those two. Though, that begs the question, which one of you all would be the one to get after me for it?"

To make his point, Alan mimed banging on a pot and pan with spoons, then turned in the other direction and whisper-screamed: 'Alan Gratzer! Stop that right this instant!'

"Well, I don't see Kevin or Gary doing it to you, and I won't -at least not right away, because I want the chance to see you make a fool of yourself first before I stop you. _Hmmmm..."_ Gregg stared down at Neal intensely.

This time, Neal not only smiled, but dropped his face into his hands and shook his head, releasing a silent laugh.

"Neal Allan Doughty!"

"Oh, _sure."_ Neal's face resumed its dour, unwavering seriousness, but his tone held a smirk. "Sure, Gregg. Shift the blame right on over to me, is that right? Funny, you'll scold me, middle-name and all, but you won't scold the one of us who's been known to climb inside the washing machine to entertain himself."

Alan's attempt to hold back his laugh erupted through his tightly-pressed lips with a great racket, and he leaned over face-down on the bar counter.

Gregg looked at him incredulously.

"We were still in college," said Alan with tears in his eyes. "I didn't get in one that was running -I just sat in one with the door open. It was on a bet to see if I could get Neal to laugh since he's always so serious."

"By climbing in a _washing machine?_ " Neal tossed his hands up and shook his head. "I guess someone out there thought it was funny."

"I bet he was funny. Funny _looking,_ " started Gregg, and Alan slumped over laughing, lost at retaliation for that. Staying down, he swiped a finger under his eyes to stop the tears of mirth before they could run. To save face with Gregg, he owned it instead.

"That's it, if this band ever hits it big and we have a photoshoot in some sort of house, I'm gonna climb in the washer and have them take a picture!"

"Use your imagination; it'll be great," said Neal in a deadpan voice, with a quick glance over his shoulder at the sound of a chair dragging across the floor. "Now, if you check in the bathroom, we _do_ have a washing machine available to us in here, and Alan, if you're up to making a scene for our amusement tonight-"

Before anyone could take it any further, a loud boom broke up the fun as Gary slammed the bathroom door behind himself.

"He dragged a chair and his guitar in with him." Neal watched with a quizzical look as Kevin walked away and threw himself down hard on the couch to sit pouting. "He actually shut himself in there with his guitar to get away from him."

"Desperate times, desperate measures." Gregg stood up, shrugged and leaned against the bar counter. "Or he was looking for better acoustics."

"Very funny -if none of us had already heard that one a hundred times," quipped Neal.

Alan shook his head at Kevin, who was glancing across the room to him with an expectant look. "I could have warned him that door's not gonna do him one bit of good. It'd be a lot funnier to me if I didn't have to watch two guys who I see like family fighting each other worse than ever."

"You tried to make them stop and they wouldn't. That's all you can do. Don't drive yourself crazy." Gregg slid a bottle of wine down the top of the bar counter toward Alan, motioning toward it and the remaining line of clean glasses on the shelf above the surface.

Alan didn't think it was funny, considering the real irony that he and Gregg didn't always get along rhythmically, yet managed to have no trouble keeping each other in semi-good spirits while they were stuck together. He watched as Gary cracked the bathroom door and sneaked a look out, and seeing that Kevin had settled in one place, slipped back out with his chair and guitar.

"I already had some, and I'd rather save what we have for when we're ready to drive our heads through a wall," he muttered, trying to keep his voice low enough to not be heard in the silence that had fallen as he pushed the bottle away.

"Not that any of us are far from it, really." Neal picked up the bottle and examined it, swirling the dregs of the liquid down at the bottom around the glass confinement. "Is that all that's left in here?"

"All that the owner didn't lock up and leave inaccessible to us," said Gregg.

"Sucks on their part." Neal looked across the room at the 7-day chime clock on the mantle and raised his eyebrows. "Anyone want to guess what time it is?"

"Three?" Gregg looked up to the ceiling to prove he wasn't looking for clocks.

"11:42," said Neal. "We've been here since 7:30, and it's not even midnight yet."

Alan groaned. "Aw, man, it's gonna be a long night. I coulda sworn we'd been here..." He trailed off and scrubbed his hands over his face with exhaustion.

"Take a long enough look at that clock..." Neal stared at it, then crossed his eyes and pretended to get dizzy and collapse forward on the counter's edge. "It might be moving backwards... I think."

"It's not, but it sure feels that way." Gregg yawned, torn between the fatigue of their early-evening gig and the otherwise boring events since then. "Maybe we should sack out and sleep through it before we're all bored to tears?"

"I'd be up for trying," said Alan. "Though I don't want anyone to get going again the second I go in the bathroom to change."

"You could try changing in the kitchen, if that makes any difference -probably not." Gregg mused. "I'm just gonna sleep in my clothes so I can run straight out of here as soon as we get plowed out, whatever time that is."

"Forget it." Neal rolled his eyes. "I'm not getting any sleep until they go to sleep. It's a damn good thing the wind is so loud outside; they'd wake every bear out of hibernation otherwise."

Alan snorted and slapped the countertop, but as he did, Neal yawned so hard that his eyes watered and he pointed to them while keeping his deadpan expression and voice.

"There you have it, Gregg; too late. I'm _already_ bored to tears."

"Literally bored to tears," said Alan, miming a cry face and scrubbing at his eyes with his hands, then yawning hard too. "Damn it, you two; it's contagious!"

Neal scoffed and slid down off his stool. "That's it. I'm going out to the truck."

Gregg grabbed Neal by the back of his shirt. "In _that_ storm railing out there? _Why?"_

"I want the camera. We brought that big old clunky thing and didn't have anyone who would use it at the gig. I don't know if it'll work, but the sky's pretty light because of the clouds and the snow reflection, and the mountain outline looks interesting in it. It'll be something to do. And if nothing else, Alan can climb in the washing machine and I'll take the picture to entertain him -if he's not inconsolable by the time I get back."

"I don't know, I might be, Neal."

Neal cast a slow, sidelong glance toward Gary and Kevin, and by now Gary was dragging his chair through the room again while Kevin followed despite his orders to leave him alone. "Also..."

"Yeah, I get that," said Alan, sobering up from his amusement at Neal's latter camera suggestion. "You want a break from it. So do I."

"You know where we put the keys by the door," said Gregg as Neal pulled his coat off the hook and pulled on his gloves, but neglected his hat for the fear the wind would blow it right off.

"Hey. Don't fall back in the snow that's real deep out there, okay? I've heard the wind here isn't like in Illinois, and that's not even with a full blizzard." Now Alan was so serious that it was hard to believe he'd been talking about sitting in a washing machine and banging spoons on pans a few minutes prior. "It banks it up on the slopes, and it's hard getting back up once you're under and the wind has you pinned. The more you fall back trying, the deeper you get. You can smother in minutes if it slides down over you and you're completely covered up."

"The truck's barely a hundred feet from the porch," said Neal. "I might be taking it slow to push through the snow, but it shouldn't be too difficult. It's not far."

"Just be careful. I know you will be, knowing you, but please." Alan smiled teasingly, thinking back to the days when he'd met Neal in college as that uptight, overly cautious but endlessly sarcastic engineering student who had a natural-born, self-taught talent on the keyboards. Somedays, it seemed he'd hardly changed.

However, Alan couldn't quite hide a hint of concern in his eyes as the wind continued to scream outside, especially when the wind all but snatched the door from Neal's hand and tried to tear it off its hinges.

Gregg jumped up and ran after to pull the door shut before the hinges could sustain damage, and promptly pulled the shade covering the window embedded in the wood up so that they could see when Neal was back and ready to be let in. The gust of wind that came in had all but blown out the fireplace, so afterward, he turned to resuscitate the flames with the tools in the rack by the hearth.

Alan turned around to look at Kevin and Gary again. By now, Gary had slunk off to the window on the side to watch the storm passing, acoustic guitar slung across his lap while he sat slumped over on a chair he'd dragged over, chin resting on the windowsill.

Kevin finally made his way over to the bar with his arms crossed over his chest and a sullen look settling across his face beneath the shadow his mass of hair cast over. He propped himself up with his elbow on the counter and stared down the wear marks in the concrete floor from stools being scraped back and forth. Lowering one foot down from the stool's foot rest, he tried tracing it with his toe.

With a sigh, Alan walked away from the bar and sat down on the couch. He stared to the side window Gary sat before, watching the storm clouds blowing with the wind, and how when he leaned over far enough, he could see the huge, full moon faded in and out between them over the snowy mountain range.

Having successfully brought the fire back to life, Gregg walked over to the bar and sat down on the opposite end from Kevin, keeping quiet and letting the conflict rest.

Outside, Neal could figure by pacing his steps that he was about halfway there, and he could feel the ground beginning to slope steeply underneath the snow, which by his memory from when they'd arrived seemed right with the ratio of slope coming up from the parking lot and the platform of flatter land which the building was on.

Despite the aggressive wrestle with the door on his way out, the motion of the wind which had allowed it to fly out had assisted him on his walk out so far. The snow was up over his knees from the start, and the level had quickly gotten higher as he got away from the shelter of the building. It took even more effort than he had anticipated, but the wind was working with him, and that had kept his movement from being entirely difficult.

As the grade grew steeper under his feet, Neal slower down his pace and wiggled his feet through the snow underneath to gauge the ground under him before taking a step. The snow on top was powdery and loose, but thick and hard to break through underneath. It was slippery too. 

He questioned if turning back would be a good idea, but being more than halfway there, his stubbornness to finish what he'd started egged him to keep going, regardless of how hard it was to push through snow that was well over his hips now. The wind was still in his favor; as long as it didn't push him forward faster than his feet could carry him, he could go as slow as he needed to getting down, and as long as the wind didn't blow too fast for him, the steepest part of the hill would still have a trail to climb back up by.

_Or not anymore,_ Neal realized as the wind turned around to blow up the mountainside with a deafening scream that cut through his coat and burned at his ears and fingers through his hair. It was nearly enough to blow him back then, and he shoved one foot back through the gap in the snow he'd created walking down to brace himself.

Now he was shivering. Getting his bearings, he took a couple of steps downward against the wind, but as his heart began to speed up and the wind stung his eyes too much for him to see the truck he knew had to be not far in front of him, defeat set in.

He would have to return to the pub, without a distraction from the unraveling tension between Gary and Kevin, and surely they were coming undone worse than ever because they had nothing to do while stuck inside too. 

_Stupid blizzard, stupid wind..._ Neal turned around and made a step upward, knowing he'd best start climbing while he still had the help of the wind to get back up, and as he'd begun to fear, climbing back up was much harder than getting down. The ground under his feet, too far out of sight beneath the surface, was slippery and treacherous. 

He had almost made it back to the flat portion of land. He could see it leveling off before him, and he was just ready to breathe a sigh of relief to know that he'd be back inside again and warm, bickering and being driven to insanity be damned. 

It was then that the wind -the cruel, harsh wind -revealed its trick and turned on him again. A strong gust of wind hit Neal in the face, nearly blinding him with harsh, biting, white crystals down the hill in his face, and when he tried to step forward blindly with the wind pushing him back, the heel he kept with contact on the ground slid on the incline, landing him softly on his back a foot down into the powdery snow with a soft yelp that the screech of the wind stole away from his vocal chords, leaving him to question if he'd even produced what he felt.

It was a surprising depth to fall into, especially oriented with his head pointing down the slope, but he supposed it wasn't terrible given the circumstances of how he was positioned. Knowing the snow was deeper than where he lay, he tried to sit up without propping himself with his hands behind his back, as he knew they would push down through it in an instant and possibly lead him to slide down the hill backward. Surely, falling through couldn't happen as easily as Alan made it out to be, he tried to assure himself to keep from panicking.

But as he pulled in his knees and tried to rock forward to a sitting position, the heavier snow under his middle collapsed. This snow, he could feel was far too thick to push through, and he found himself suddenly far deeper than his outstretched arms, curled up in a ball on his back, and with his heart in his throat as the air rushed out of his lungs in shock.

Now he was three feet down from the surface, and Neal could already see the gap above him getting smaller as some of the snow on the upper incline began to slide down from instability. His window of view on the thick clouds above and the gaps exposing the bright moonlight was getting smaller, and already, the roar of the wind was well muffled out. It felt surreal. As if he was slowly sinking deeper into darkness and out of the world of living with each motion he made. He could feel himself tiring out as his mind processed the initial shock and as his heart sank back to his chest, where it slammed painfully against his ribs. He could feel the cold around him setting in and sucking the energy from his body as the heat left it with his shallow, quick breaths that were not only induced by fear, but continued with the fear that a deep, satisfying gasp of air might shift the snow around him just enough to fall again.

_Really? Is this how it ends? And right after I was warned too?_

Not wanting to know how much deeper he could get, or if it was possible to trigger an avalanche on the hill that would form a hard layer of snow he'd never be found under, Neal slowly extended his legs back out so that his toes showed just half a foot below the opening in hopes that somebody would see him. It was all his shaking body had the strength to do before he lay paralyzed with fear, watching the clouds sweep across the sky and moon at breakneck speed through the tiny, open porthole left in the snow above him. Though the sky seemed to get paler with the reflection off the white piled on the ground against the clouds, everything, including the white and cold cocooning him seemed to be fading into darkness as his eyelids grew heavy and his awareness of the cold dulled.

Inside and out of Neal's sight, the dreariness continued. His bandmates had remained in their silent stalemate and were all nearly half-asleep in their seats, until the chime of the old windup clock on a shelf snapped them from their trance.

"It's been blowing hard for four and a half hours now." Gary's complaint was muffled as he spoke without lifting his chin from where he rested it on the windowsill.

"Yeah, there's no way we're getting out of here until late tomorrow for sure," said Alan, lifting his head from his fist.

A few minutes passed, then his eyes widened and he did a double-take at the clock reading 12:10.

"Wait a second. Wasn't Neal just going out to the truck?"

Gregg snapped his head up and checked the clock too.

"Oh, shit, he should have been back here by now. We gotta get him back inside; he'll freeze pretty fast out there."

"How long ago did he go out?" asked Kevin.

"At least fifteen minutes ago; I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to what time it was," Gregg groaned. "Last we checked was a little before a quarter 'til. It wasn't that long, but it couldn't have been too far past that."

Kevin jumped up, grabbed a flashlight from the counter, and began trotting toward the door.

Alan started to stand up from the couch, and Gregg began to stand from the opposite side of the bar. When Kevin opened the door and ran out on the stoop with every visible intention to keep going, Alan flinched and he stretched an arm out in the same direction.

"Wait, Kevin, what are you-"

"KEVIN!"

Gary got over from the window faster. Dashing alongside the walls with none of the obstacles in the middle of the room to navigate, he was off his stool and at the door before anyone could see him move. With eyes wide as saucers, he reached through the door, hooked his arm around Kevin's bony waist, and yanked him back inside. He didn't let go until he'd slammed the door shut, and whether he'd actually slammed it was questionable. He could have been moving fast in fear, or the draw of the wind could have been strong enough to slam it without trying. He'd moved so fast that neither Gregg nor Alan could tell.

Kevin squeaked in protest as half the wind got knocked out of him and dissolved in a coughing fit on the sofa once Gary dragged him over and sat him down hard. He looked up at Gary, who still had a wild expression and was breathing almost as erratically as himself.

"G-Gary, w-what the f-"

"Kevin, you CANNOT just run out in the storm like that!"

Gary's voice was a whole octave higher than what he usually spoke with. His entire physical expression was such a stronghold of adrenaline that it was impossible to tell how much of his tone was fear, how much was blind anger, and how much was condescending of his younger bandmate.

"DON'T yell at me!" Kevin glowered, and only then did he look down at himself and realize that he did deserve some wild looks. He wasn't wearing a coat and was clad in a thin long sleeved t-shirt and track pants. He was used to the cold in Illinois. Then, if Neal was stuck in the snow, he could get stuck too and not last a second in the thin fabric... Did that even matter though? Did Gary even care that Neal had been out there for how long without them even knowing?

"You're not even wearing shoes; you don't know what's on the ground under the snow," said Gregg. "Go out like that and you're gonna get cut. Some of those rocks on the hill we walked up were sharp." He pointed to Kevin's feet, which indeed were covered only by socks. The material was damp from running out on the stoop, and only as Kevin looked down to them did he feel the stinging cold setting in.

Gary leaned on the wall with his hands on his hips and an exasperated look across his face. "At least put on your coat and shoes and take someone with you so you don't wind up hurt! And maybe figure out how we're gonna go about doing that so it's not entirely fucking dangerous too?"

Kevin snapped back, unleashing his own sassy temper.

"Gee, Gary, with the way you've been dissing every idea I've had for you all since you took me onboard, I didn't know you cared that much!"

"HEY!" Alan clapped his hands together from the opposite side of the room and glared at them both. "Both of you, knock it off!"

"Just because you're threatening to leave and we're at odds over everything doesn't mean I want to see you do something stupid and get yourself killed, kid," Gary scolded. "Don't EVER do that again!"

He forced his voice so hard on "again" that it came out sounding like "a-ghe-in." It would have been funny on any other night, or had it happened before the realization that Neal needed help.

"Well, I'm definitely not doing that again when you're gonna make a scene bigger than what it was to start with!"

" _ENOUGH!"_ shouted Alan. "You guys want to help Neal? This ain't gonna do it!"

Gary sighed. In addition to being part of what was annoying Neal and Alan all night, he already knew he'd probably hurt Kevin's feelings with his quick reactions, and he'd definitely hurt his excessive pride, but there was no time to smooth it over with talking, hugs, or whatever else they hadn't already tried to close the rift between them with. Instead, he went for the coat hook and grabbed his coat and gloves, then Kevin's, and handed the latter set to him.

"Come on; put that on and let's figure out how we're going to get him without getting anyone else stuck or hurt. Any ideas, Gregg?"

"Well, we know he wouldn't have gone any further than the car, and we know where we were parked. And that wasn't that far to begin with, so already there aren't to many places he could be," Gregg started.

"We need to go out with something to balance with, or something to give us an extra push for climbing back up the hill," said Alan. "For all we know, Neal might not be down in the snow. He could be camped out in the truck because the wind coming down the hill is just too strong for him to walk back up against."

Gregg pulled a broom from behind the bar, tucked in the corner. "How 'bout this?"

Gary pulled a billiard stick from the otherwise-unequipped pool table in the middle of the lounge. "We can use this too."

"If he fell, we can use that to have him hold onto it and pull him up," Kevin suggested, tying on his boots.

_"If_ he's conscious," added Alan. "Don't be surprised if he's not if he did fall. We should still take it though; that's gonna be better if any of us fall trying to get to him -to give you some leverage to push up and figure out where the ground is."

"That still doesn't help with visibility. At least one of us needs to stay here to help guide whoever goes out back. And we need to send at least two of us out, because it's just not safe to go out alone. Even if one of us could find Neal and get him up alone-"

"Look here." Gregg pulled a long rope coil out of the storage closet. "This might just be long enough, and it's something we could use to guide ourselves back and forth between the porch. That way, even if somebody does fall, if they keep hold of the rope, they can pull up on it and follow it back to the house, even under the surface if it's pulled tight enough"

"Or allow someone else on the line to find them, since we'll know where everyone is." Kevin examined the rope and nearly dropped it when Gregg released it into his arms. "Holy shit! That weighs a ton! I wonder what they usually use it for."

"Given by the length and weight, I'd think if a car got stuck on the hill and had to be pulled," guessed Alan, trying not to crack up at Kevin's reaction. "I imagine even without snow, the mud from a rainstorm up here would be fun to get out of."

"Alright, enough of this," said Gary. "We have a plan; we need to get out there and get Neal. Gregg, you stay here on the stoop and hold the rope tight for us. Alan, Kevin, you two are going out with me. Whoever goes out last on the rope can go back early once we find him and get anything inside we need ready so we can take care of him right away."

"I'll do that," Alan volunteered. Nobody argued on that. Alan had a knack for organizing and any housekeeping tasks. If there was anyone who would be able to move quick on it, it was him.

"Kevin, Gary, are you two good bringing him back?" asked Gregg. "I can switch with one of you if you need to."

Kevin was scrawny, and Gary knew he wasn't much more physically filled in himself, but his build was deceptive of his strength, and he hoped that even if Kevin was only as strong as he looked, they'd be fine putting their strength together. Besides that, Neal was smaller than both of them. Holding on and fighting the wind was the real wrench in the works that led him to question if they were getting themselves in trouble.

"I think we got it," Gary decided. He'd rather have Gregg putting his strength to anchoring the rope tight for them to pull back up the hill. As long as the rope was there and they kept hold of it, it wouldn't matter how many times they could fall. It would be their lifeline.

Alan held the billiard stick, and Kevin held the broom. Gary held a flashlight and stayed between his other bandmates for safety in lieu of having something to stabilize himself with. But he stayed protectively on Kevin's heels, fearful of the danger up front and Kevin's naivety.

"Don't either of you let go of that rope, okay?" warned Gregg from the doorway. "Because I'm not coming out there to get you all if there isn't anyone to help me if I fall through. I can at least hold this taught so you got something to find your way back with, but I can't just come out and find you by myself."

"I think we're always gonna have something on it," said Alan. "If we have to take a hand off it for a second, I'll straddle it, slide it through a belt-loop -anything so I won't lose track of it."

"I didn't think of that; I'm gonna do that too," Gary agreed, thinking of how much easier it would be to pull Neal up with free hands.

"Good, and I have one other request of you three, though it may be more specific to two of you."

Taken aback, Gary, Alan, and Kevin turned around to stare at Gregg with equally baffled expressions.

"Don't you dare distract yourselves with fighting out there," Gregg scolded, "because that's the most dangerous thing you could do. Everything that's been going on tonight, leave it right here on the porch, and if you have to pick it back up again, don't even think about it until you're back inside with him. This is about Neal."

Alan's shoulders visibly lifted and sagged with a deep sigh, and the abashed looks across Kevin and Gary's faces said enough for their lack of words. Gary nodded and hung his head as he turned around, and Kevin's cheeks and ears burned too pink to blame on the short exposure to wind with the embarrassment of being scolded again.

As soon as they were all off the stoop and away from the shelter of the building's side, the strength of the blizzard unmasked itself to them full force. It was wicked, biting, and terrifying as it lashed out and scratched at their cheeks and the tips of their noses. 

Gary and Kevin nearly both fell at once as getting a face full of ice crystals stunned them both. The wind gust driving them was so strong that it choked Gary off for a moment, leaving him unable to draw a breath. Alan was lucky enough to see them take the hit to brace himself before it struck him too.

"Pull your scarf over your nose!" he shouted over the roar, amazed that Kevin and Gary could hear him and struggled to keep hold of the rope and their gear while adjusting their protection.

"I wish we had our goggles and that we didn't leave those out in the truck," Kevin complained as he and Gary slowly pushed down the hill, well over their knees in snow. It got deeper as they made their way down the hill, where the side caught the windblown drifts. Not much further down, they were pushing through snow just below their hips as Neal had.

"Well, unless we don't find Neal before we get to the truck or if he's in it, we're not getting that camera now," said Gary, "and we won't be getting those either."

"Any sign of him?" called Alan. They'd stretched the rope about half its length, and the stoop was a faint light in the distance when they turned back.

"Not from here!" Gary shined his flashlight around in a circle.

"I think that's the truck!" shouted Kevin, pointing down to where the parking spaces were, out past the the steep drop of the hill. Just the top of the rusty red truck jutted out of the snowbank the wind had formed in the pocket of the mountainside. The snow was over the bottom of the windows.

"Holy...!" Alan's yelp drowned out in the wind, but neither Gary nor Kevin had to ask what he meant. "Well, he's not in there!"

"Yeah, that door was already submerged," Gary muttered, not bothering to strain and make it audible when his remark was of the obvious. "There's no way he got that open."

He could see that Kevin was already beginning to shiver hard, and even he was feeling the cold much sooner than he was used to. The cold temperature itself wasn't terrible, but the ice was cutting through him like a knife. Gary could imagine that whatever blizzard wind could roll over the gentle hillsides of Illinois was far more damaging at the same speed when it funneled between the mountains and forced through at a higher pressure. How long Neal could have stood in it was beyond him, and seeing the truck, he'd just lost all reason to hope he'd found a safe escape from it.

"NEAL!" screamed Kevin.

"I don't think he can hear you," called Alan, though it didn't stop him, or Gary from trying too.

"Neal?!"

"NEAL!"

"NEAL, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"We're a little over to the side from the truck; let's start sweeping sideways and seeing if he went more to the right or left," tried Alan.

The wind was pushing so strong to the right that even though the truck was more to the left of their path, they collectively decided they should check there first.

"If we end up having to go back and look here anyway, we will have fought that wind for nothing."

After a ten minute struggle walking back and forth from the right, and a slew of profanities from fighting through the deep snow, Gary tugged back to the left against the added resistance of the wind.

"Don't even look down the hillside on this side," strained Gary. "He's not here. I just have the gut feeling he wouldn't walk down without having sight of the truck-"

"He wouldn't have," Alan shouted to cut in.

"And it's not worth the trouble to walk down where it's deeper and we know he's not there."

Eerie silence struck them as the wind paused.

"I c-c-can _h-hear,"_ Kevin chattered as though it was some miracle.

"NEAL!" Alan shouted, taking advantage of the momentary quiet as they also took advantage of the lack of wind to move further left without a struggle. 

No answer. Now they could tell the lack of response wasn't a matter of wind, but either that Neal couldn't, or was muffled under snow.

"He's gotta be somewhere under the surface." Alan looked side to side with frantic motions as the worst case scenario set in as undeniable reality. "If he was standing down the hill, he'd have heard that."

"What's _th-that?"_ asked Kevin.

"That ridge of snow right there?" asked Gary, shining the flashlight on it. It was just slightly further left, a few paces down the steeper hill from the parking lot, and perfectly lined up with where the truck was parked at the bottom.

"Yeah."

"Let's look. Alan, we're pulling a little forward -still mostly to the left of our path," Gary warned, before he and Kevin began shifting over through the snow, just as the wind came screaming back with a hurricane-force gust, pulling the rope in the opposite direction of Gary and Kevin, and tripping Alan. The force of the wind knocked him over before he could attempt to get his footing.

"WHOA! Oh, jeez!" Alan went down on his knees and tried to jump up, one hand on the rope, the other extended in front of his body with the billiard stick to brace himself as he fell forward several times while trying to stand back up against the wind. "I keep falling down! Hold on, hold on..." 

He disappeared below the surface and his voice was too muffled to make out. Gary and Kevin held still and took a step back to slacken the rope enough to not pull out of Alan's hand as he clambered back to his feet with the aid of the stick.

"You alright?" asked Gary.

Alan huffed a sigh and shook the snow out of his face. Aside from being shaken and panting, he seemed no worse for wear.

"I'm good," he shouted over the wind. "Thanks to this stuff we took with us. I was sitting up to my neck, and I don't think I went as deep as it goes. My feet sank down a lot deeper when I pushed up the first few times."

"And Neal's so much smaller," Kevin added.

"Kevin, you are walking in sensitive territory," warned Alan, knowing how self conscious Neal had at least once been of his height. Thinking it was one thing; saying it out loud was entirely another, whether Neal could hear it or not.

"Alright, just keep angling over; let's do this if we're gonna do it." Gary led the charge as soon as he saw that Alan had a good grip and had once again stabilized himself.

"Scary." Kevin sighed in unison with Alan and Gary as they continued with the ever-real warning that each step forward was a gamble on the wind and the ground underneath the snow playing on its stability.

Finally, the ridge they'd seen was in just a few step's range. 

"Oh, there's an opening," said Alan, "I think we got him right here!"

On closer inspection, they saw a small cavern in the white surface that seemed far too small for a human body to have slid into. But then, the tips of two dark sneakers were visible just inside it with an even closer approach, and looking down into the narrow entrance, the distinct shape of two sprawled legs clad in dark blue clashing with the snow.

"I see him! NEAL!" shouted Kevin. "Neal, can you hear me? Are you alright?!"

"I don't think it really matters to see if he's conscious right now. Either way, we need to get him out of there and back inside." Alan did a double-take at the formation of snow around their keyboardist. "You can tell it's been gathering over him and he's been down awhile."

"He's not saying anything back that I can hear." Gary pulled off his glove with his teeth so he could continue to hold the rope and shoved his hand down on Neal's ankle, working his fingers into Neal's sock to find the pulse on his foot that was all they really needed to know on the instant. "He's alright for now, but he's out of it and real cold -we're gonna need to get him quick."

"Can we pull him up?" asked Kevin.

"It's already walled up around him, it's gotta be in one smooth move, otherwise it all collapses and we have to uncover him too," warned Alan. "And, he could choke when it falls in his face while he's unconscious too.

"We have his legs in reach, but is that a good idea?" Gary eyed the trajectory of the hole suspiciously with the beam of the flashlight.

"I'm afraid if we try to pull his legs to get his face out from under that ledge, the friction underneath will just get his head down lower in it," said Alan.

"And he's already weak," added Gary, "so we don't want to scare him and have him go into shock."

"Yeah, we don't want that." Kevin winced at just how much further below Neal was from where he stood, knowing that snow was packed under his feet and that he'd be a good half-foot deeper than his hips at the least if it gave way.

"Can we reach in and pull him by the arms? It's a bit of a reach down, but I see them -he has them down at his sides." Gary pointed downward.

"What if we hurt him doing that?" asked Kevin, looking at the angle Neal was down in, and how much lower his shoulders were than the rest of his body.

"It's not like he's gonna feel great after this anyway, and there aren't many other options left," reminded Alan. "Gary?"

Gary eyed Neal, hoping for a sign that he could hold out longer so that they could strategize how to move some snow from around him, or another way out. But the snow looked unstable against the wind, already getting a powdery look on top with a slope toward the bottom that said it could blow down over Neal at any second, and the keyboardist lay so still and pale.

"We could grab him by his hips," he tried, "but I just don't see that going as fast, and again, if it collapses down on his face and he's not awake to see it coming-"

"No; that's it. Pulled muscles are better than getting smothered. Just as long as we don't pull so hard that it dislocates his shoulders -we have to be careful for that," Alan insisted. "When we get him about halfway up, we can change our hold on him to something safer."

"One of us oughta get our hands under his back as soon as there's enough room."

"Alright, it's your idea, _you_ do that, Kevin," Gary ceded. "Try getting around me so I'm not in your way to get behind him -here, let's pull the rope in a curve here so we're all in the right place..." He tugged the rope to the side to guide Kevin and Alan into a curved formation around the opening, and to swap places with him while keeping hands on the rope. "Alan, you and I are gonna reach down across the rope -that way if we fall forward, it's under our hips to catch us -and we're gonna grab his wrists and pull up on his arms."

"Got it," shouted Alan over a gust of wind. A chunk of snow fell from the ledge of the hole over Neal, nearly obscuring his midsection, and Gary's eyes widened.

"We gotta move, NOW. Kevin, be ready for him! Alan, ready on one! Two! Go!"

Without a second's hesitation past Gary's call, Alan and Gary lunged their hands down the channel of snow and pulled Neal up as the snow began collapsing down over him. Kevin reached his hands along the side of the collapsing tunnel Neal had laid in and grabbed under Neal's hips as soon as his upper body began to emerge.

"Okay, Alan, step back with me so we can pull him away from the hole!"

They stepped away with Neal, now pulled into a semi-standing position, held up by his arms and hips.

Kevin barely had the rope still in his hands when Neal collapsed on his forearms. He strained to keep him from falling back down while holding the rope until Gary and Alan could shuffle their tools, and until Gary got his arm looped around Neal's hips so that they split the load and properly reconnect with the safety line.

"You two got him?" asked Alan.

"Yes," said Gary. "Take the flashlight back with you, we're walking toward the lights now. We can see."

Alan traded off his stick for the flashlight, and always keeping his fingertips on the rope, ran back up the hill, powered by adrenaline and having longer legs than the rest of them. Gregg continued to hold the line while he got to the door and tore inside. 

Without bothering to take his gear off -save for his gloves, which he threw on the floor to deal with later -Alan pulled open the one couch that had a foldout bed and began slapping on the sheets that were tucked inside, trying to get a surface ready. 

He'd just gotten towels -which were quite conveniently still warm in the dryer -laid down over the fitted sheet to protect from melting snow when Gary and Kevin finally came back inside holding Neal after their slow-but-steady struggle to safety.

Gregg shut the door behind them again as soon as they were through the doorway. It seemed to yank from his fingertips when it was inches from the frame and slammed then too. Definitely the wind this time.

"Lay him down," ordered Gregg. "I'll take his gloves and coat, and you all get out of your gear before doing anything else."

Whether it was because he was particularly stubborn tonight, or out of fear for his bandmate, Gary ignored Gregg, sat down next to Neal, and began stripping him from his layers instead. He tossed the gloves and coat to Gregg, only pausing then to shuck off his own protective outer layers. Then he began the slow process of getting Neal's snow-chilled clothing off, with the last minute decision by Alan's insistence to leave his underwear on and spare his dignity.

"I don't think that's enough surface area to cause too much trouble. Wrap one of the warmer towels around his hips and it'll reheat pretty quick," Alan suggested. "He's already gonna be embarrassed enough; let's avoid what we can."

Neal had the faintest blue tint to his lips and the tip of his snub nose, but luckily his gloves had done well protecting his nimble fingers from being anything more than being reddened and cold to the touch -not frostbitten enough to cause any long standing damage. Alan had already climbed over the back of the fold-out couch with six additional blankets to pile around Neal as Gary removed his clothing. They tried to keep Neal in tightly against their bodies for added warmth until they could cover him back up.

Neal's unfocusing eyes cracked open. He muttered something unintelligible as he began shivering profusely and closed them again. As Gary tried to remove his t-shirt, he tried to fold his arms and curl up to resist it, but he was too weak to make the motion and he moaned in protest as it was pulled from him.

"I know, Neal; you're cold. Sorry for that," Gary murmured sympathetically as he cradled him in against his side and folded the blankets tighter around to make up for the temporary loss of covering.

Alan slid one of the towels out from under Neal and tucked it around his head and neck, covering his snow-soaked hair in warmth.

"Aren't you supposed to put someone in a lukewarm shower to keep them from going into hypothermic shock?" asked Kevin. "There's a tub in the bathroom we could put him in."

"You can do it with washcloths too on just the extremities if the room temperature isn't anything too extreme. The towels are kind of warm from the dryer, so that should be good enough for the rest. And it'll probably be easier on him and all of us if we keep him where he is." Gregg leaned over and examined Neal's colorless cheeks, cold fingers, and placed his hand in front of his nose to feel the shallow puffs of barely-warm air with each exhale. "We should still do the water on his arms and his feet, and probably his face too, with what we've got going here. But let's just give him a moment first to realize where he is so he doesn't freak out, because that's not gonna do him any favors either."

Gary nodded and lay down beside Neal to extend his body contact around the bundle of blankets and towels.

"That helps too -locking the heat in around him." Gregg walked off to assess what they had available underneath the bar and in the kitchen that they could use.

Alan sat and watched over, letting his thoughts drift off as Kevin began questioning Gary, and Gary continued to hold Neal against his side and rub his fingers to encourage the circulation to return while he looked up at Kevin, an all-too-familiar mix of emotions from throughout the evening showing in his eyes.

Neal moaned softly again as lucidity slowly began finding its way back to him, and he in turn tried to find his bearings. _Where was he?_ He felt as though he was still buried deep in the snow, surrounded on all sides and too weak to move, but he wasn't cold anymore. That was a scary thought, despite the nice feeling. Maybe hypothermia had set in so deep that he'd lost sensation to it? How long had he been unaware of the happenings around him? Was he seeing blinding light above his eyes because he was passing from the world of living?

Then he remembered being vaguely aware of flashes of his clothes being removed, and he didn't feel his coat in contact with his body. He _couldn't_ still be in the snow... unless that hadn't been real, and neither had the soft voice reassuring him to lie still until it had lulled him back off into oblivion.

He heard voices that sounded familiar now, but they weren't so soothing. Rising in sharp, angry, back-and-forth tones. Was he dreaming, or were they real? 

Neal squeezed his eyes tightly shut and concentrated hard on the voices, trying to break free of his semi-conscious confusion, just in time to hear the exchange between Gary and Kevin that told him somehow, he was still alive, and safely back inside the bar, all other concerns from whatever the heck it was around him aside.

"...So are you going to tell me what it was you were working on earlier? Or am I not allowed to touch it because heaven forbid I be a part of the writing process you all hired me to be part of -maybe I should leave anyway if you guys don't decide whether or not you're gonna fire me before the next album!"

"Keep on like _that_ , Kevin, and one of these days it's not gonna matter whether we find the right style with you or if you've changed your mind to stay with us or not -I'm gonna call Mike Murphy to take your place, and you're gonna be _gone!"_

Gary winced even before Kevin's face fell. There had been talk of replacing Kevin before the next album, but even with their differences, he hadn't meant for his words to slip out sounding so harsh. And if the lost look settling on the singer's face wasn't the thing making him feel like an ass in that moment despite the pill he'd been lately, Gary didn't know what was driving the feeling he had.

"And you know, it really sucks that we have to have this stupid fight tonight while we're all up here together for the purpose of writing and sharing our ideas -ones we have _ready_ to share -and that we're having to have it when we're scared and when one of us is hurt and all of that's not important right now. I don't know about you, Kevin, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, neither do I, but if I'm going to be gone, maybe when I am I'll find out that wanting to be here was a mistake!"

Neal groaned incoherently.

"Kevin, quit running around like you're only eight and help out," Gregg hissed, attempting to break up the argument before it could escalate further. "Neal's starting to come up. Get me the largest bowl you can find from the kitchen and use the sink in there to warm it up. I'm going to make some lukewarm water in the tub; you bring me the bowl once you do that so it's not sucking the heat out of the water, and then help me bring some towels back in here."

Gary looked over to Alan, who had stood up and was staring him down with an intense look.

"Get your coat on, and let's go outside," said Alan, picking up his own coat from where Greg had spread them out to dry.

Gregg looked at Alan with the wildest look in his eyes.

"I promise, we're staying _on_ the porch," said Alan. "We're not going out in that deep snow again for anything."

Gregg just shrugged a silent _suit yourselves_ and motioned at Kevin, pointing to the kitchen door. Alan slipped out on the porch with Gary, having no other choice for an isolated place to talk with Gregg working in the bathroom and Kevin in the kitchen.

As soon as they were outside, Gary leaned his back against the door and hung his head, exhaustion and defeat infecting every inch of his body.

"You need to chill out a moment," said Alan sternly, but not scolding. "Before everyone ends up miserable and you start beating up on yourself -if we're not there already."

"I know. We're headed at the end of the tour, but that went further than I wanted it to."

"I'm not saying he doesn't need to stop either. He's a good kid -his arranging skills are great, but he's not ready for this and being a team player rather than solo, and he's going to go back and forth until he has the last word."

"He wants to work with me, but he doesn't know when to hang back before making changes to my stuff, and he gets upset when we want to change something of his." Gary finger-combed nervously through the ends of his curls, which were damp and tangled with the ice in the wind that whipped through them on their rescue mission. "He gets defensive, and it's a shame, because when we're not trying to write, he's like the little brother I always wished I had. It kills me, when it gets to this. You saw the look in his eyes, Alan. I'm not _trying_ to hurt him or fight with him."

"Reality's gonna hit him a lot harder than that at some point; there's no point in trying to protect him." Alan thought fast as he watched Gary's stability deteriorating quickly. As stubborn and headstrong as he could be, he had a sensitive heart, and once the strings were pulled tight enough, the smallest touch could make him snap. Writing conflicts aside, everyone in the band knew that Gary did care about Kevin and wanted the best for him -everyone except Kevin himself, and nothing got to Gary more than when Kevin didn't see and appreciate it and the stability of the family the band functioned as faltered.

"He means well. He's just not -well, Gary, can any of us really say we're mature?"

Gary cracked a smile, and Alan shared a tired one with him as the humor took away the tiniest amount of pressure.

"He's still got a ways to go. And we might never know how much he'll change the way he acts from it -we don't need to worry about that if he's not staying. But we have at least a couple of months with him before we get back recording in the studio, and if we can minimize this stuff, maybe it won't be too bad even if he does leave."

"I just want to be done with this for tonight." Gary snorted. "I didn't come up here for this. Imagine, driving up the mountain for an early evening gig, planning to stay the night in an old hostel pub to fight and not get anything done while stuck up here with a blizzard. And just so you know, I really didn't plan on having one of us get stuck in the snow on their own either."

"Well, he's inside now, and he might be waking up soon." Alan looked at Gary hopefully, with his words unspoken. If they could focus on recovering Neal and leave all other thoughts behind, hopefully, he and Kevin would both be calmer by the time they could get back to attempts at writing.

"Yeah, we'll take care of him first." Gary led the way inside and called out. "Is Neal awake?"

"He's responsive, but we don't know how much he's seeing or able to speak yet. He's mostly just nodding yes and no," came Kevin's voice from through the open bathroom door.

Gregg brought over the bowl of lukewarm water with a hand towel, and Kevin emerged behind him with more dry towels. As he walked toward Neal, he met eyes with Gary with the thousand-mile stare his eyes seemed to always give off, and Gary looked back wearily, but neither spoke in what seemed to be a tense, silent truce.

They all made the decision as Kevin and Gregg arrived that Gregg and Gary should work with the wet hand-towel, as Neal would be much more embarrassed if his old college roommate had the task to start with.

"Sit him up a little; we gotta get this on his face and we don't want to make a mess or choke him. Kevin, help me swap towels?"

As Alan sat Neal up and Gregg removed the towels that had been there at the start -now soaked through with melted snow kicked around while removing Neal's snow-packed clothes -Kevin picked them up and took them to the dryer to set on a quick dry cycle.

"Those should be ready when we need to replace the ones here again," he said as he started the dryer.

Gregg flashed a thumbs-up and looked down to Neal, who was now propped up in Alan's arms. "Hey, Neal, look up at me for a minute here. Do you have any numbness or stinging with your face and hands?"

Neal nodded listlessly.

"Alright, keep your head up here -this cloth is wet, so don't inhale against it through your nose when I pass over it. It's just to get the circulation to come back."

"You'll feel a lot better once it does," Gary assured when Neal flinched on contact and tried to shrink back.

Neal tried his best to keep his head up against the hard shivering that tried to make him pull his chin down reflexively. He waited until Gregg had passed the cloth over his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and finally, his lips that were still shockingly discolored, and he switched between breathing through his nose and mouth as necessary to keep from inhaling water from the soggy hand towel. Even though the water was barely warmed, it felt stinging hot against his chilled, wind-whipped skin.

"G-Gary, iz-z-s'it st-still s-snowin' outs-s-s-side?" he murmured through the chattering of his teeth, the muffling of his covered nose, and against the pressure of Alan running a dry towel under his chin to catch the excess water escaping the wet one.

"Yes." Gary combed his fingers through Neal's hair to keep it from drying in tangles and to loosen the melted snow from it before wrapping it back up in another fresh, dry towel. "It's snowing, Neal. Snowin' but good."

"Mm s-so c-c-cold. H-how bad izsit? Are w-we in t-trouble?"

"It's pretty bad out there," said Gregg. His voice was tinged with concern as he kept dipping the hand towel in the warm water, squeezing it out, and patting it in slow, gentle circular patterns with two fingertips over Neal's cheeks and nose. The rest were only then beginning to see some color returning to the skin, and he moved on to work at Neal's fingers, which thanks to Gary's work earlier already looked significantly better.

"The snow's piled up a foot over the bottom of the side door," said Kevin, checking the door they hadn't used, which had gotten more direct wind and had piled high, even under the eaves blocking out direct accumulation. "Let me tell you, even if you look out the window, you can't see a thing except for when the clouds break and the moon shows. We're in some pretty big trouble alright."

"It's not that bad, Kevin. Quit exaggerating before you start scaring him. The snow's pretty thick, but we'll be fine staying in here." Alan placed his hand on Neal's wrist to let their disoriented keyboardist be aware of where he was rather than confused by voices coming from all directions.

"W-we s-stuck here th-then?" asked Neal. His speech was slightly less broken than before as his chattering finally began to subside.

"Well, we are stuck," said Gary. "The truck's up to its windows in snow. You wouldn't have been able to get that camera if you'd made it that far. But we're safe in here."

"Hey, Kevin, do you have that hairdryer in your night bag?" asked Alan, pulling the damp towel from around Neal's head. "He'll recover even faster if we can get his hair completely dry, and the hot air can't hurt either."

Kevin ran to retrieve it from his bag, and plugged the wire in at the nearest outlet supplied by the emergency line, having to stretch the cord nearly as far as it went to reach.

"Just close enough, or we'd have to move the couch," he noted. "That was lucky placement."

"Damn right it was." While Kevin aimed the hot airflow, Gary worked his hands through the ends of Neal's hair, which without being brushed or combed out straight while drying was quickly curling and fluffing up so that it framed his face softly, giving him a doll-like appearance with his snub nose, round cheeks, and small stature -a complete contradiction to his personality. In addition to the good feeling of the airstream against his hands -which were cold again after his trip on the stoop with Alan, there was something about the white noise and the variations with the sweeping of the dryer over the quiet, spoken exchanges between Alan and Gregg at the foot of the fold-out that relaxed Gary and subdued his frustration.

"Do you feel any frost nip anywhere else?" asked Gregg.

"Below my knees ...little bit." Neal sounded less cold than he did groggy now with the white noise and comfort lulling him back off. "...Feelin' fine up here now."

"Alright, Alan. Help me out. Gary, you and Kevin should probably dry yourselves off too once you finish getting him dry." 

Gary motioned for Kevin to take care of himself, reminding that he was wearing heavier clothes than Kevin was and less vulnerable to chill from wet hair.

"Once you're dry, we're gonna turn the lamps off and unplug everything, and the fireplace and flashlights will have to do the trick so we can see and heat it up in here," said Alan. "We're gonna want that generator to still have power left for us tomorrow until they can get someone to plow us out of here."

Neal winced with the first contact on his legs, and this time, being more awake, he couldn't restrain himself from hissing by sucking air in through gritted teeth. Though his legs didn't have as much discoloration, having been under a protective layer of clothing, they still burned with the contact of even the slightest warmth from how much the cold air had attacked them.

"You had your legs up where the wind could get them; that's probably why they're stinging so much worse." Gary pointed to Gregg with the hand towel. "He's doing the same thing there now to take the shock away."

"It wouldn't have burned as much if we'd done that while you were out," Gregg admitted, talking as he went to distract Neal from the discomfort. "But we wanted you to be awake to know what we were doing here. I wouldn't think you'd appreciate it too much if you woke up to that and didn't know what it was."

"What?" Kevin looked confused.

Neal groaned. "Gregg, forget Kevin acting like he's eight. You're _five."_

Kevin burst out laughing. "Aww, Gregg. Now you've done it!"

"I didn't say that you weren't still in that boat, Kevin. Clearly, _kiddo._ You can't get around being the youngest of us here by any means."

"Aw, Neal," Kevin complained, though he was still grinning.

"Hey, there's a number of things I could mean by what I said, Neal. _You're_ the one who took it _that_ way," Gregg teased. "I don't think you're any better. Though I guess you're condition has improved enough to not have to worry about you too much, since you're with it enough to snark at me."

"Feeling coming back to everything?" asked Alan as he made the last pass with the drying towel, completing their frostbite abatement. "You don't still feel frost burn, do you?"

"Yeah, it feels fine -oh, for crying out loud!" Neal scowled, pulled his knees up and his feet out of reach, and tried to turn over to get away from Alan, only to roll into Gary instead. "That's enough. I don't need you all to coddle me -go away!"

"Well, tough noogies," Gary chuckled, taking the hairdryer from Kevin as he and Alan snorted in unison.

"Tough noogs, Neal," repeated Alan. "We're snowed in up here, we don't have anywhere else to go, and we're staying right here next to you, like it or not. You're stuck with us for tonight, so what are you gonna do about it?"

"We're not giving you a choice in the matter!" Gary crossed his arms, held his head high, and beamed before getting up to carry the damp towel back to the dryer as the previous cycle finished. Before Neal could shift further away, Alan locked him down under his arm.

"Alan, I shoulda known you'd be trouble when we met..."

Alan laughed. "And you're stuck with me!" He slid in under the covers and hugged Neal in his bundle of towels, pushing the heated fabric tighter against him and trapping it there. "G'night, everyone; I'm ready for a nap!"

"S'nice," Neal murmured, unable to resist turning in against Alan and his added warmth, being extra tired-out by his ordeal.

"Ooh, can I pile in too?" asked Kevin, eyeing the towels and wishing he could join in the pile.

"Unless some of us get on the floor, all we have is this and the other sofa," said Gregg. "The one that doesn't fold out is only good for about one of us, and I sprawl out and kick a lot, so I'll probably crash there. Unless someone wants to make a pile of blankets on the floor, the rest of you will kind of have to pile in."

"If we stick together, it'll keep Neal warm," said Kevin, flopping down on the other side of their keyboardist, who stayed silent and seemed to have given way to sleep. "We'll all keep each other warm if the fire goes out overnight."

While he and Alan quieted down around Neal in the faint light flickering from the fireplace across the room, Gary went to put away the hairdryer and help Gregg switch off the generator from the electric closet behind the washing machine. When they returned, he sat down with his guitar on the bottom edge of the couch-bed, content that Gregg was in front of the fire and had his sleeping bag and would be fine on his own. He tapped against muted chords as he ran his lyrics through his head and watched and listened to Kevin and Alan speaking softly, pointing to the side window where they could watch the huge, silvery, full-moon powering through the breaks in the clouds sweeping over.

_That's it,_ he thought to himself with a smile as just the right words slid into the gap he needed to fill and he scribbled on the crumpled piece of paper he pulled from his pocket with the rest of his work. _We got this now._

Kevin and Alan looked up as Gary slid himself beside where they lay on either side of Neal and hoisted his guitar up on the arm of the couch so that it was in reach without taking up space on the surface of the foldout.

"Alright, Kevin, I got a couple of verses and a chord outline ready on this song now. Do you still wanna help me with it?"

Kevin's face lit up and he pulled himself to a sitting position, still keeping his legs extended protectively by Neal's side.

"I haven't decided what kind of rhythm I want on this, and you're gonna be part of deciding that when we arrange it, so this is just a basic chord structure."

Gary began lightly strumming the acoustic with accented downstrokes on each chord changes, and making short, muted clips between them to hold the sound over. A minor, rising up to B minor, then C major, and back down to start the climb again in a repetitive rise-and-fall, much like the progress of their ride in over the mountain range. It was an unusual combination, but one that could accommodate both Kevin's folk influences and the blues style Gary had started with.

Holding Gary's paper under the beam of his flashlight, Kevin made his first attempt to sing along with Gary and create a vocal melody.

_"Riding the storm out, waiting for the fallout, on a full moon night in the Rocky Mountain winter..."_

The two exchanged looks as Kevin diverted from Gary, taking a lower, alternate harmony to the way Gary sang it, but the latter nodded to say that the other pattern worked too.

_"...My wine bottle's low..."_

Alan couldn't help but grin sheepishly and blush, wondering how much of his complaining with Gregg and Neal that Gary had been aware of while he was sitting and watching while piecing together the allusive lyrics he'd been so hot and bothered to get right before sharing.

_"...watching for the snow, I've been thinking lately what I've been missing in the city."_

Gary strummed a rising pattern of short, doubled, inverted A minor chords to mark the end of the verse and stopped with his right hand up to call a pause.

"I don't know how we're going to arrange the rest, but I want the piano to do that. I think the percussiveness to it, and that echo you get with going up the chords-"

"-Ooooh, I have an idea!" Kevin nearly bounced off the couch, provoking a sharp inhale from beside himself as he woke up Neal from the light sleep he'd fallen into. "How about we hold off the piano through the first verse, keep the guitar line simple like you have, and then start the piano there and use that to drive a countermelody under the rest of the song -that way it builds up-"

"Like the storm," said Gary. "Create the dreary setting inside, then add the storm building outside..."

"Can I try something with the synthesizer to start it out? When we get back home?" asked Neal in a groggy tone.

"What's you idea?" asked Gary.

"It would be before you start the guitar, and I'll fade out and hang back until you want me to come in, but if I could start on a low note and swoop up and resolve it back down, with the right tone, it might sound like one of those storm sirens we have."

"We can do that and crash down on the drums, guitar, and bass right as you resolve it, and that'll grab the attention to start." Gary nodded. "Even better."

"Can I just change the wording to 'thinking about what I've been missing'? It's just a matter of it being easier to say for me as long as I'm singing it."

"Sure, Kev. Want to run through it again before we try the chorus?"

Kevin eagerly jumped at the chance -Gary had to crack up internally that of all the instances it was noted to happen, he never had met a singer who enjoyed hearing himself so much -and finally, on the ascending inversions of the A minor chord, they made their way into the chorus, with Gary striking a modal D chord.

_"...And I'm not missing a thing, watching the full moon crossing the range..."_

The dreary storm atmosphere of the earlier progression then broke through as Gary came in with the bright, all-too-familiar but never failing pattern, rising and falling through F Major, G Major, and A minor.

_"Ridin' the storm out..."_

_"Whoooo..."_ Kevin softly sang a whispery, descending note from C to A, just as the wind gave a similar descending howl outside. As Gary repeated "Ridin' the storm out" through the chorus with him, Alan joined Kevin, harmonizing it so that they matched the A minor outline and rang out with the wind perfectly, until the starting progression finally took over where the next verse would start.

"Can we make just one other change to the lyrics?" asked Kevin. "It's a small one; I promise."

"Tell me what you think. I may or may not take it though," Gary warned.

"I was just thinking, if we could change 'fallout' to 'thaw-out'? It won't sound much different vocally, and I think -well, I know why you put 'fallout' in there with the way we've been having some troubles. But the other is more specific to the storm, and it might not always be relevant to the band later other than to bring back bad memories. Unless that's part of the story being told, then-"

"That works too. I couldn't come up with a wording for being able to get a clearing out of here, but it fits, so you can make note of it there."

Kevin eagerly wrote his alternative on the paper margin.

"Second verse is a little more of something from a typical night -I'm hoping it'll make it a little more relatable, or at least get the record company off our backs about stuff being commercially friendly," said Gary.

"Well, they're open enough that they can be taken more than one way," said Kevin. "We could make them more specific, but I think here it'd take away from the storm, and-"

"-Save it for another track," said Gary, ending it before they had another arguing point. "Let's run through one last time with the adjustment before we call it a night, okay?"

From beside where he lay flat, huddled beside Neal, Alan could barely make out the banter between Kevin and Gary through the muffling of the blankets and the screaming wind outside, but he'd heard enough to catch the change when they went back through the first verse again, and this time, sang the wind harmony together.

_...well the wind outside is frightening, but it's kinder than the lightening life in the city, it's a hard life to live but it gives back what you give..._

_And I'm not missing a thing, watching the full moon crossing the range..._

The last thought Alan had through his mind before he dropped off to sleep beside Neal as he listened to the wind and singing and watched the moon through the side window, was that he was no longer waiting for the only thaw-out he'd really cared about tonight -the one between his bandmates.

Minutes later, content with having finally accomplished the goal of a song worthy to use as a single, and with neither wanting to look to the lineup argument awaiting them at home, Kevin and Gary lay down on the other side of Neal, watching and pointing to the gusts of wind blowing storm drifts outside the window as two young brothers might have lay awake in a shared bedroom to rebel against going to sleep early. 

They stayed up and fought sleep until they both conked out, pointing to the raging storm, but the rage between them didn't rise again through the night. They stuck together and kept each other warm as they rode out the storm outside, and Kevin managed the satisfaction of the last word of the night: that if he stayed in REO Speedwagon long enough to perform the song live, he would introduce it with those words every night.

Somehow, he had the feeling as he lay next to his bandmates that even if he did leave, he'd still have the chance to say it with them down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the much slower, bluesier and piano-driven studio version with former bassist Gregg Philbin, and Mike Murphy's vocal on the official release, as here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HTBv4kAdk_w (sequel fic is built around the better-known live version.) An argument that comes up without thorough research of the band history, while Gary Richrath was the main lyric writer of "Ridin the Storm Out", Kevin Cronin was still in the band when it was written and had some part in forming the studio arrangement. There's a rare version with him singing on the studio track on YouTube. Ultimately, when he left temporarily and Mike Murphy joined, the vocals would be rerecorded for the album.


End file.
